Chiang Yee ( Pinyin Pinyin spelling system: Jiang2 Yi2, Wade-Giles: Chiang Yee) (May 19, 1903 — October 26, 1977), self-styled as "The Silent Traveller", was a Chinese poet, author, painter and calligrapher.
Chiang Yee was born in Jiujiang, China, on a day variously recorded as May 19 or June 14. He married Tseng Yun in 1924, with whom he was to have four children, and in 1925 graduated from Nanjing University (then named National Southeastern University), not only one of the world's oldest institutions of learning but also relaunched in 1920 as China's first modern university. He served for over a year in the Chinese army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, then taught chemistry in middle schools, lectured at National Chengchi University, and worked as assistant editor of a Hangzhou newspaper. He subsequently served as magistrate of three counties (Jiujang in Jiangxi, and Dangtu and Wuhu in Anhui.) Unhappy with the situation in China then (see Nanjing decade), he departed for England in 1933, leaving wife and family behind.
From 1933 to 1935 he taught Chinese at the University of London, and 1938 to 1940 worked at the Wellcome Museum of Anatomy and Pathology. During this period, he wrote and illustrated a well-received series of books entitled The Silent Traveller in..... His first was The Silent Traveller: a Chinese Artist in Lakeland, written from a journal of a fortnight in the English Lake District in August 1936). Others followed: The Silent Traveller in London, the Yorkshire Dales, and Oxford. Despite paper shortages and rationing, these books were kept in print. He wrote The Silent Traveller in Wartime, and, after World War II ended, the series gradually ventured further afield, to Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, New York, San Francisco, and Boston, concluding in 1972 with Japan.
Commentary on his writing: 1933-1955
The books characteristically bring a fresh 'sideways look' in a peaceful and non-judgemental way to places perhaps unfamiliar at the time to a Chinese national: the author was struck by things the locals might not notice, such as beards, or the fact that the so-called Lion's Haunch on Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh is actually far more like a sleeping elephant. In his wartime books, Chiang Yee made it plain that he was fervently opposed to Nazism. His writings exude a feeling of positive curiosity, life-enhancing in a unique way. Some of his books have been re-issued in modern times, sometimes with fresh introductions.
After living for some years in a small flat in London and being obliged, during the war, neither to travel nor to take part in the hostilities, on account of being classed as an 'alien', he moved to the United States in 1955, where he became a lecturer (and ultimately Emeritus Professor of Chinese) at Columbia University from 1955 to 1977, with an interlude in 1958 and 1959 during which he was Emerson Fellow in Poetry at Harvard University. He became a naturalized citizen in 1966. He illustrated all his books, including several for children, and he wrote a standard tome on Chinese calligraphy.
He died in his seventies in China after spending over forty years away from his homeland, on a day variously recorded as in October 7 or 26, 1977.Chiang Yee's tomb is on the slopes of Lu-Shan above his home town; he is now part of the landscape and environment that influenced his painting over the years.
Chiang Yee was survived by his eldest son, Chiang Chien-kuo who joined him in the UK after WWII. Chien-Kuo married and lived in Jersey, Channel Islands. He died in 2002 and was survived by his wife, Barbara Chiang, two children, Stephen and Sudi Chiang and grandchildren, Toby and Emily Chiang and Shiao-li Green. Chiang Yee's younger son, Chiang Chien-Fei, joined him in the USA in the 1960s, where he still lives with his wife and children in New England.
